


pay no mind to my lonely heart

by amosanguis



Series: crossovers and fusions ftw [55]
Category: Black Sails, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Going back in time, Immortal Billy, Immortal Merlin, M/M, Magic, Prompt Fill, author will edit when she's sober, i wrote this five minutes ago, title from a country song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was all the fault of that strange friend of Billy’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pay no mind to my lonely heart

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [andrea_deer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/pseuds/andrea_deer) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> \--Title from "Asphalt Cowboy" by Blake Shelton.  
> \--Has not been edited  
> \-- **Prompt:** Can be slash, can be just them meeting. Through some mumbo-jumbo, plot-device, time portal, whatever, during his travel to Nassau, lieutenant James McGraw meets Captain James Flint.

-z-

 

This was all the fault of that strange friend of Billy’s.  The boy whose eyes were endlessly blue, were ancient beyond the lines of his face.

Billy had gone below decks, and that strange boy who called himself Emrys had taken one look at Flint and said, “Oh, dear boy, so many demons.”  And then he’d touched a finger to Flint’s forehead and then Flint found himself standing in a too familiar dining room.

Thomas was standing on one side of the room and the man Flint had used to be was standing at the other – Flint himself was standing between them.

“What is this?” his younger self asks – he’d still been McGraw then, hadn’t picked up the name Flint.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Flint says, relieved to notice that Thomas wasn’t reacting – he was frozen in time.

“Are you—”

“You?” Flint interrupts.  “Yes.  Word of advice – don’t let Billy Bones bring anyone on your ship.”

McGraw gapes – his eyes darting between Flint and Thomas and Flint can’t help but follow his line of sight.

Thomas was still so young.  Judging by the lines of his face, Flint could see that he had a few years left.

“Treasure the time you have left,” Flint says, the words leaving his tongue before he could fully comprehend them.  His eyes never leave Thomas.  “You don’t have long with him.”

“What does that mean?” McGraw asks, immediately defensive.

Flint looks away and he’s about to tell everything – but then he’s blinking and he’s suddenly back on the _Walrus_.

Emrys is standing in front of him – his finger falling away from Flint’s forehead.  “I’m sorry,” he says.  “That was as long as I could hold it.”

Flint stumbles backwards, his breath stuck in chest.  He remembers it then – remembers seeing himself and a grave warning that he hadn’t known what to do with.

“Nothing changed,” he says.

“No,” Emrys says, his eyes wide and filled with sorrow.  “I’m sorry.”

“Then what was the point?” Flint demands, anger was beginning to curl hot in his chest.  Thomas was an old, old wound – and Emrys had just callously ripped it open.

“Because time has a way of changing us,” Emrys says, calm despite Flint’s snarl.  “And sometimes we need to remember why we fight – whatever that reason may be.”

Flint turns away – runs his fingers through his hair. 

Thomas had always been beautiful to him, but, at some point, Flint had forgotten what Thomas had looked like when he was still young – before the stress of war and politics had sunk down and hollowed him out, darkening the skin under his eyes and turning his skin pale.

He turns back to Emrys, asks, “And who is that you need to remember?”

Emrys smiles softly, says, “Billy.”  Then he’s standing and he brushes a hand against Flint’s cheek – an inexplicable warmth flooding through him from the simple touch.  “For what it’s worth, your souls are tied and when you are reborn – you’ll be together again.”

“If you believe in such things,” Flint says, his mouth again saying the words before he thinks about them even as he tries to ignore the warmth from Emrys’s touch and the hope from his words.

Emrys just smiles again – it’s the same one that a parent would wear when trying to explain a sure thing to a child.

That night, when he goes to sleep – feeling that bone-deep tired – Flint feels that warmth again.  And when he dreams, he dreams of Thomas’s skin and mouth and the way he laughed.

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
